Israel, the Arabs and Iran

International Relations and Status Quo, 2011-2016

Ehud Eilam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351604925
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Israel borders four states – Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and two entities – the Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza stip. In recent years, despite incidents on the border with Syria and Egypt, the basic strategic status quo with these countries has not changed, and the overall balance of power between Israel and the Arabs has been maintained. Due to its military might, none of Israel's Arab neighbours are able to defeat it. Israel, however, for political, economic and military reasons, avoids enforcing its will and interfering in internal Arab matters and has successfully managed to stay out of the Arab turmoil.

Israel, the Arabs and Iran gives a detailed overview of the various national security challenges that Israel has faced since 2011. It explains the key considerations and constraints Israel has had to deal with on several fronts, from its northern border with Lebanon to its southern border with Egypt. The book provides the reader with a deep understanding of why and how Israel has struggled to keep the status quo, whilst a large part of the Middle East remains in turmoil.

The book is aimed at anyone studying Israel, its Foreign Policy, Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations. It will also appeal to government officials, military officers and anyone working or interested in national security issues concerning the Middle East and particularly Israel.

1 The West Bank in 2014

Both Israel and the two Palestinian entities – the PA and the Hamas – wish to control all the territory that is now the state of Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, Israel, Hamas and the PA have maintained a fragile status quo.

Overall background

In the beginning of the 1948–1949 war, the Palestinians had their best chance to gain a state because the British Mandate was over and the Jews were quite weak militarily. Yet the Jews won that showdown, and since then Israel has been able, as a state, to gather enough military might to defeat the Palestinians, particularly as the latter have been spread in several Arab states.

In 1964 the PLO (Palestine liberation organization) was established, but even at the peak of its military strength, in the early 1980s, it was no match for the IDF, as proven in the 1982 war. The PLO not only failed in seizing any part of Israel but also lost the territory it had in Lebanon. Since the showdown in 1948, the only hope Palestinians had beating the IDF in a full-scale war was based on other Arab militaries accomplishing that. However, even the most successful war Syria and Egypt had carried out against Israel, in 1973, demonstrated they could not overcome the IDF. Therefore, since the 1990s the Palestinians chose another way: conducting negotiations with Israel aiming to acquire at least part of their lost land while continuing to confront Israel. Israel for its part relied on its superior military might to deter, punish and prevent the Palestinians from seizing by force any territory Israel wished to keep in its hands.

In the 1967 war Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan, which gave up its claim for that territory in 1988. During the 1990s, following the Oslo accords and other agreements, Israel relinquished parts of the West Bank to the newly established PA. In the 2000–2005 confrontation, the IDF recaptured areas in the West Bank and later on retreated from them while keeping a strong presence in the entire West Bank.

The Gaza Strip was conquered twice by Israel – in 1956 and in 1967. In 1994 Israel retreated from most of the Gaza Strip, and in 2005 Israel withdrew completely from that territory.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip served as a battlefield between Palestinians and Israel mostly in 1987–1993 and in 2000–2005.

Max Abrahms argued in regard to the 2000–2005 war that “the disconnect between the PLO’s policy demands and Israeli perceptions of Palestinian objectives has been explained by (1) inconsistent rhetoric on the part of Palestinian leaders about the aims of the intifada, and (2) Jewish apprehension that contemporary violence against Israel is akin to previous traumatic experiences in which Jewish survival in the Diaspora was threatened.”¹

Since 2005 there might have been confrontations such as the one in 2000–2005, marked by a massive use of firearms by both sides, or that of 1987–1993, when Palestinians’ arsenal was stones, firebombs and so on to which Israel responded with guns and nonlethal measures. Clashes in the West Bank might have been also a mix of the 1987–1993 and the 2000–2005 fighting, or it might have started as in 1987–1993 and then escalated to the more severe level of the one in 2000–2005.

In August 2014 “in the West Bank, the PA’s security forces have proved relatively effective in maintaining security. There has been good cooperation with Israeli security forces, and considerable progress has been made in building the governmental institutions of a potential Palestinian state.”² In 2007 the Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip were defeated by Hamas. Israel has been concerned this might repeat itself in the West Bank. Ironically the PA does wish Israel to leave the West Bank but needs the IDF’s presence there to deter Hamas or be on standby to protect it from a Hamas attack.

The security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank has also helped protect Israeli Jews, those who live inside the West Bank as well as outside it. This was not a precedent. Along its history Israel collaborated with Arab governments, secretly or not, to secure Israeli civilians from guerrilla and terror assaults. If the Arabs failed or refused to contribute their share of the agreed deal, Israel took matters into its own hands.

Israel has been using soft power against both the PA in the West Bank and the Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but there’s a difference in Israel’s handling the two Palestinian factions. In the West Bank Israel imposed economic restrictions. In the Gaza Strip Israel maintains an aerial and naval blockade, deciding what products can be delivered there, and does not talk nor work directly with the Hamas.

Elie Podeh argued in 2014 that the Arab Peace Initiative “has been an available policy option for more than a decade, yet no Israeli government has embraced it as a viable peace option.”³ Efraim Karsh claimed in that year that “for nearly a century, Palestinian leaders have missed no opportunity to impede the development of Palestinian civil society and the attainment of Palestinian statehood.”⁴ Efrain Inbar said in May 2014 that “following the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, ‘doing nothing’ and managing the conflict is Israel’s most sensible approach to the situation.”⁵ The PA and Israel expressing their will to solve their problems through diplomatic activity made or pretended to make an effort to try and reach an agreement that would lead to a Palestinian state. As things stand now, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict is not curable, but it is treatable.

Israel has to tackle several adversaries in the region, the Hamas not always being its top priority. The Hamas, on the other hand, notwithstanding all its disputes with the PA and Palestinian groups like the Islamic Jihad, has concentrated its efforts against Israel.

Hamas may seem to be more determined to fight Israel than the PA, that is, the Fatah. It might be because the Fatah has been colliding with Israel since the 1960s, gaining much more experience than the Hamas in confronting Israel, which serves to moderate the PA. The Hamas that was established only in the late 1980s sticks to the strategy of armed conflict.

In 2006 the Hamas participated in the elections in Gaza, thereby ignoring aspects of its 1988 treaty.⁶ In 2014 Israel recognized Hamas as the authority in the Gaza Strip, that is, the one that is accountable for any hostile actions that come out of there. Over the years the Hamas and Israel have thus developed their relations by conducting military steps, delivering public announcements, using brokers and so on. The knowledge the two sides gathered about each other deepened the understanding both had about their foe. This involved ways of confrontation but also means of preventing or limiting mutual collisions. As time has passed the two sides have continued to learn about their rival’s constraints, information which eventually might bring an historical compromise between them.

Conditions for a flare-up within the West Bank

Anthony Cordesman evaluated in March 2014 that “both the Israelis and Palestinians are too divided internally, too suspicious of each other.”⁷ Indeed, at that time the peace talks between Israel and the PA reached a dead end. It was not a surprise considering the overwhelming obstacles the two sides have faced since the beginning of this process. Those problems were well-known, but solving them demanded both sides to pay an enormous price, so each of them obviously tried to give up as little as possible.

The armed confrontation of 2000–2005 came at a high cost for both sides. Since then Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PA, opposed initiating a similar confrontation. If the PA had decided to collide with Israel, it would have probably preferred the model of the 1987–1993 uprising, based less on armed clashes and more on riots and demonstrations, some of them quite violent. The 1987–1993 Intifada led to the Oslo accords and to the establishment of the PA, but such a precedent did not guarantee that the next fight upgraded the PA into a state. The results could go the other way if things got out of control and jeopardized the survival of the PA, causing the Palestinians in the West Bank to return to the status they had had before 1993 and live under direct Israeli rule. Israel itself does not wish such an outcome, for its security, political and economic ramifications. Furthermore, even some members of the Israeli government and its political and military elite, who reject a Palestinian state, regard the PA as the lesser of two evils. If Palestinian security units had vanished, Israel would have not only lost their assistance in security matters. Those men could have used their weapons and training to harm Israelis, blaming their former ally for losing their jobs. In mid-2014 “security cooperation has been put under strain. The Palestinian public has taken to protesting against, and at times even throwing rocks at, Palestinian security forces, accusing them of being Israel’s policemen.”⁸

If there was a confrontation like the one in 2000–2005, Palestinian assaults would have included suicide bombers trying to spread terror all over Israel. In 2002, in response to those attacks, Israel launched a massive offensive. The fence built since then, surrounding most of the West Bank, has made it difficult for Palestinians to harm Israelis throughout the state. This measure protected the PA as well because it lowered the chances of a major Israeli retribution, such as an offensive in the West Bank that could have undermined the PA. However, keeping Palestinian terror and guerrilla activity within the West Bank meant that about 350,000 Israelis living there would have to survive in a battlefield, while the rest of the Jews in Israel would be safer. The level of solidarity between Israelis residing within the green line and those beyond it in the West Bank territories could have a substantial impact on the consequences of a confrontation, including the fate of the PA.

An ongoing deep frustration has been brewing among many Palestinians in the West Bank as well as within the refugee camps, owing to their grim economic and political situation. This explosive potential may flare up even against the interest of the PA, whose leadership has been aware its people might turn not only against Israel but against them too. In fact, the rage among Palestinians might even focus on the PA. The latter might try diverting the wrath of the masses by turning them against Israel, but this old maneuver might fail this time. The turmoil that has struck the Arab world since 2011 might reach the West Bank, somewhat overdue, but for many Palestinians it would be “better late than never.”

The Hamas called for a third intifada⁹ that could bring down its rival in the Palestinian camp, the PA. If Israel retakes all the West Bank, the Hamas could exploit the collapse of the PA and the hostility in the West Bank toward Israel to increase its operations against it. The Hamas would present itself to the Palestinians as their only political option. If then the Hamas continue to oppose negotiating with Israel, a fight would ensue. The Hamas could not prevent Israel from controlling all the West Bank, and Israel, with all its power, might not be able to crush the Hamas completely.

As long as the PA survives, there is a chance, if only remote, that Israel and the PA will resume negotiations and reach an agreement. A Palestinian state in the West Bank seems to be the most plausible compromise as a one state solution would not work. In spite of the crises and clashes Israel and the Palestinians have lived through, they might eventually learn how to live side by side, aided by the experience gained since the establishment of the PA. The alternative, one democratic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Glossary
• Introduction
• 1 The West Bank in 2014
• 2 The 2014 confrontation between Israel and Hamas: the goals and the battles
• 3 The 2014 confrontation: outside intervention and outcome
• 4 The Syrian civil war
• 5 The cold war between Israel and both Iran and Hezbollah
• 6 Egypt: risks and opportunities
• Conclusion
• Appendix I: Various aspects of Israel’s status quo, 1948–1982
• Appendix II: Differences and similarities between the wars in Libya in 2011 and Syria
• Index